Good Eats

My korean friend told me about this korean shopping market that has three little food stores inside of it where you can buy some chinese/jap food (but its cooked by koreans). If you walk into this store its a dingly little store thats behind the shopping center, so if you dont drive behind it, you'd never know its there.

But the food there is so great, its like real food from asia with all these little side dishes that comes with it. I have a miso soup, eel with rice and caviar on it!, some sort of tofu looking cake, some chopped vegtables with a spice sauce on it, some sort of pickled vegtable, and more, and it call costs $10.00!

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/4173/pict0203eq7.jpg [Broken]

I love finding little gem of places like this. The best part about it is, its only korean people eating there. So you know its going to be good. The menu has numbers, everything else is in korean.

My korean friend told me about this korean shopping market that has three little food stores inside of it where you can buy some chinese/jap food (but its cooked by koreans). ... some sort of pickled vegetable ...

It's Korean food. I worked for a *tiny* company owned by Koreans. They are quite proud of their cuisine and their heritage, so dont call it "chinese/jap food".

My guess regarding that "pickled vegetable" is kimchi. Kimchi is a bit like haggis and lutefisk in the sense that you probably don't want to know how its made. A word of warning regarding kimchi: Don't indulge if your body reacts to garlic (if you don't know, ask your SO). The odor of kimchi-laden sweat is a bit pervasive.

It's Korean food. I worked for a *tiny* company owned by Koreans. They are quite proud of their cuisine and their heritage, so dont call it "chinese/jap food".

My guess regarding that "pickled vegetable" is kimchi. Kimchi is a bit like haggis and lutefisk in the sense that you probably don't want to know how its made. A word of warning regarding kimchi: Don't indulge if your body reacts to garlic (if you don't know, ask your SO). The odor of kimchi-laden sweat is a bit pervasive.

No, thats how its advertised at the store!

How do they make it? It cant be any worse than cheese, which is rotten milk.

Had this same thing been sold anywhere other than that supermarket, it would easily have run upwards of $18+

Kimchi is a pungent, fermented dish generally consisting of cabbage or turnip seasoned with salt, garlic, green onions, ginger, red pepper and shellfish. ... Chinese cabbage, the main ingredient in the most commonly eaten kimchi, has a higher protein content than many other vegetables and a significant amount of minerals and vitamin C, and its green leaves are rich in vitamin A. Radish roots, another major ingredient, are not only rich in vitamins but also diastase, an enzyme that promotes the digestion of carbohydrates.

OK, so its healthy. Moving on ...

Garlic, which is eaten in many ways including raw, is an essential kimchi ingredient as well as a mainstay of the Korean diet. It even figures in the national foundation myth. Dangun, who, according to legend, founded the Korean nation in 2333 B.C., was born of the union of a heavenly god, Hwanung, the son of the God of All and ruler of Heaven, and a bear who became a woman after eating 20 cloves of garlic and a bundle of mugwort and staying out of the sunlight for 21 days.

Koreans love garlic and love to put *lots* of garlic in their kimchi. Your girlfriend may nor may not love you after you eat lots of kimchi.

So, how is it made?

To make it, Chinese cabbages (baechu) are first trimmed, split down the middle and put in brine to soak. When they are soft, they are rinsed in cold water and drained. Meanwhile, julienne cut radish strips are mixed with a red pepper paste made of red pepper powder and water. To this are added crushed garlic, salt, thinly sliced green onions, and a variety of other seasonings. Finally, the cabbages are stacked in a crock, jar or other appropriate container, covered with salted cabbage leaves, pressed down firmly and covered. The storage temperature of the gimjang kimchi, as winter kimchi is called, should be well controlled throughout the winter to prevent overfermentation and souring. The traditional way of doing this is to bury the crocks of kimchi in the ground.

In other words, put cabbage, a lot of garlic, a whole lot of salt, and a little bit of this and that in a porous clay crock. Put the crock in a hole in your back yard, let it ferment and rot for six months or so, soaking up some flavors from the ground in the process, and tada, you have kimchi.

Since when do people eat "vegtables"? Couldn't resist. Anyways, in Asia those sort of things are EVERYWHERE in the markets. Probably a reason that people there don't come home with everything EXCEPT what they wanted.

In other words, put cabbage, a lot of garlic, a whole lot of salt, and a little bit of this and that in a porous clay crock. Put the crock in a hole in your back yard, let it ferment and rot for six months or so, soaking up some flavors from the ground in the process, and tada, you have kimchi.

It's basically sauerkraut with extra stuff for a spicier flavor. Sauerkraut is also salted, fermented cabbage.

But the food there is so great, its like real food from asia with all these little side dishes that comes with it. I have a miso soup, eel with rice and caviar on it!, some sort of tofu looking cake, some chopped vegtables with a spice sauce on it, some sort of pickled vegtable, and more, and it call costs $10.00!

I love finding little gem of places like this. The best part about it is, its only korean people eating there. So you know its going to be good. The menu has numbers, everything else is in korean.

Eh..expensive? I think so. The food where I live is cheaper and it's great.
There's this vietnamese restauraunt and it's dish of porkchop and etc on the plate is only $5 and it looks exactly like this
http://d1.biggestmenu.com/00/00/2e/7f9e7d216c92bedb_m.jpg [Broken]
so 10 is expensive.

yes, they have 2 types in the vietnamese restauraunt around here.
one is very salty and dark brown and i don't use it. The other sauce is orange in color and they put some carrrot slices in it. (I use that to put on the porkchop rice)

And that eel you had? I can get it at the supermarket frozen for $5 as well. All you have to do is heat it up and it's the WHOLE eel, not part of it. (and trust me, I'm not going to say where I live, but my city is much more expensive to live in)

yes, they have 2 types in the vietnamese restauraunt around here.
one is very salty and dark brown and i don't use it. The other sauce is orange in color and they put some carrrot slices in it. (I use that to put on the porkchop rice)

And that eel you had? I can get it at the supermarket frozen for $5 as well. All you have to do is heat it up and it's the WHOLE eel, not part of it. (and trust me, I'm not going to say where I live, but my city is much more expensive to live in)

Oh, those viet. summer rolls are great for warm weather because their so light! Use the dark brown sauce in the big squirt bottle, its great.

The frozen eel at the asian market cost $9. Granted, it was more eel, but you didnt get all the little side dishes and rice. So, all in all, I think its still a bargain.

The Vietnamese salad rolls (what you're calling summer rolls) are excellent! And peanut sauce is the only way to go with them.

You've got me curious, christina, because I think that 10.00 for the meal Cyrus purchased is a good price. And 5.00 for the pork meal you linked is an astounding bargain. Restaurant food just isn't that inexpensive, here.

Did $10 include the soup as well as what was on that foam tray? If so, that seems like a reasonable price to me too, and I live in a place where food typically is quite cheap compared to cities. Just regular Chinese take-out here will cost about $7 for a combination platter of a main dish, fried rice and egg roll, and it would be extra for a soup or any other sides, and what Cyrus got looks like a comparable amount of food.

Christina, it sounds more like you just might have a bargain of a place nearby.

Did $10 include the soup as well as what was on that foam tray? If so, that seems like a reasonable price to me too, and I live in a place where food typically is quite cheap compared to cities. Just regular Chinese take-out here will cost about $7 for a combination platter of a main dish, fried rice and egg roll, and it would be extra for a soup or any other sides, and what Cyrus got looks like a comparable amount of food.

Christina, it sounds more like you just might have a bargain of a place nearby.

The whole lot was $10! And you dont even ask for the sides, all the dishes on the menu have different sides depending on what goes well with it, I guess!

So there all like a surprise! (Hmmm, I wonder what sides will come with this!)